the party’s eve, I was happy to conduct a tour with her, jotting down minutia on a notepad with a pencil. She held my hand, I can
recall, and led me from the door the guests would pass through, to the tables, and
the places at the tables where my mother had arranged the cards that told each guest
where he or she would sit. We blew up balloons. We raised and lowered strings of lights,
determinedwhether we preferred it if the lights were blinking, or were steady, or if they might
be festivest in combination. We sat in Papa’s place, pretended we were Uncle Ikey,
said that we were Grandpa Al. We admired, from each place, and we corrected, according
to the eyes we were pretending we were seeing through of Grace Dendari, or Amelia
Dangberg, and Vernon’s first dead wife, Althea. If we were sitting at a table for
the fat folks, we pretended we were fat. Or else we sat across the barn, pretending
we were thin, or loud, and quiet, politically inclined, or agriculturally, or were
inclined to tell a joke, or not, and were inclined to feel that jokes were told by
those who felt their lives were jokes, whose punchline would not overcome them, so
long as they foresaw it. My mother and I, we foresaw enough to bend our knuckles over
sticks, pretending we were arthritic. Or else we ate our food off hayhooks, pretending
we were droll. We stepped onto the dancefloor, where my mother picked me up, and we
pretended we were two, a newborn, flushing couple, sated, wary, looking out for tricky
seamsplits in the plywood.
I had my one arm hooked around my mother’s neck, the other arm extended where she
led it. She was strong, she carried me; my bottom rested in her elbowcrook, my lap
supported Mother’s bosom. She said for me to hold on tight, at certain times, and
at other times she said for me to try and seem as if I hardly touched her. I remember
she smelled mothery to me, like her favorite sweatshirt, maybe, nice, voluminous and
sort of pissy, really, regular. Her voice was soothing, dancing, I liked to feel it
through her chest against my lap. I told my mother, No, ma’am, when she asked me could I smell a barn nearby, and, Yes, ma’am, when she asked me could I understand at all what we were doing. I did not tell her
I thought dancing without music was for sissies. Nor did I tell her I thought only
sissies would be caught outdancing with their mothers. I think I told her only that I thought I must be learning.
My mother rubbed her cheek to mine, said, Yes, that’s right, she thought I must be learning. She squeezed me, said I’d grown so big, so fast;
she said it made her tired to try and hold me. She let me down, and then she thanked
me, and she curtsied, and then she seemed to study me before she said it might be
time for me to learn the proper way of bowing. She stood the two of us apart. I was
to watch. I saw the funny, silky way her eyes would close and open at the bottom of
the bow and at the top, how her eyelids seemed to be descending at the same rate as
her bow descended, slowly, falling finally closed when she had gone as low as she
would go, and then opening, slowly once again, but not too slowly, following a kind
of nod her head made at the bottom of the bow to indicate that she was coming up now,
my mother’s eyelids coming open from the little nod and looking like to say, “Don’t
mention it,” only nearer to the classy way she thought the same thing might be said
by men of finer breeding. My pleasure, Not at all, my mother said, like that.
As for me, I botched it. I bent too far, too low; I closed my eyes, my mother said,
as if I had a dirty trick in mind; I opened them as if I thought my partner ought
to be amazed with me, as if the thing that I had done—bowed—required of my partner
an ovation. It would not do, my mother said. If I wanted to attract the cows, she
said, then keep on acting like an ox. She told me that my father
recall, and led me from the door the guests would pass through, to the tables, and
the places at the tables where my mother had arranged the cards that told each guest
where he or she would sit. We blew up balloons. We raised and lowered strings of lights,
determinedwhether we preferred it if the lights were blinking, or were steady, or if they might
be festivest in combination. We sat in Papa’s place, pretended we were Uncle Ikey,
said that we were Grandpa Al. We admired, from each place, and we corrected, according
to the eyes we were pretending we were seeing through of Grace Dendari, or Amelia
Dangberg, and Vernon’s first dead wife, Althea. If we were sitting at a table for
the fat folks, we pretended we were fat. Or else we sat across the barn, pretending
we were thin, or loud, and quiet, politically inclined, or agriculturally, or were
inclined to tell a joke, or not, and were inclined to feel that jokes were told by
those who felt their lives were jokes, whose punchline would not overcome them, so
long as they foresaw it. My mother and I, we foresaw enough to bend our knuckles over
sticks, pretending we were arthritic. Or else we ate our food off hayhooks, pretending
we were droll. We stepped onto the dancefloor, where my mother picked me up, and we
pretended we were two, a newborn, flushing couple, sated, wary, looking out for tricky
seamsplits in the plywood.
I had my one arm hooked around my mother’s neck, the other arm extended where she
led it. She was strong, she carried me; my bottom rested in her elbowcrook, my lap
supported Mother’s bosom. She said for me to hold on tight, at certain times, and
at other times she said for me to try and seem as if I hardly touched her. I remember
she smelled mothery to me, like her favorite sweatshirt, maybe, nice, voluminous and
sort of pissy, really, regular. Her voice was soothing, dancing, I liked to feel it
through her chest against my lap. I told my mother, No, ma’am, when she asked me could I smell a barn nearby, and, Yes, ma’am, when she asked me could I understand at all what we were doing. I did not tell her
I thought dancing without music was for sissies. Nor did I tell her I thought only
sissies would be caught outdancing with their mothers. I think I told her only that I thought I must be learning.
My mother rubbed her cheek to mine, said, Yes, that’s right, she thought I must be learning. She squeezed me, said I’d grown so big, so fast;
she said it made her tired to try and hold me. She let me down, and then she thanked
me, and she curtsied, and then she seemed to study me before she said it might be
time for me to learn the proper way of bowing. She stood the two of us apart. I was
to watch. I saw the funny, silky way her eyes would close and open at the bottom of
the bow and at the top, how her eyelids seemed to be descending at the same rate as
her bow descended, slowly, falling finally closed when she had gone as low as she
would go, and then opening, slowly once again, but not too slowly, following a kind
of nod her head made at the bottom of the bow to indicate that she was coming up now,
my mother’s eyelids coming open from the little nod and looking like to say, “Don’t
mention it,” only nearer to the classy way she thought the same thing might be said
by men of finer breeding. My pleasure, Not at all, my mother said, like that.
As for me, I botched it. I bent too far, too low; I closed my eyes, my mother said,
as if I had a dirty trick in mind; I opened them as if I thought my partner ought
to be amazed with me, as if the thing that I had done—bowed—required of my partner
an ovation. It would not do, my mother said. If I wanted to attract the cows, she
said, then keep on acting like an ox. She told me that my father
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